Supporting High Achieving STEM Scholars in Appalachia

About This Grant

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Appalachian State University (App State). App State is a predominantly undergraduate university located in the western region of North Carolina. Over its six-year duration, this Track 2 project will provide scholarships to at least 51 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor's and/or graduate degrees in chemistry, computer science, geology, mathematics, or physics. The project will provide up to four years of scholarship to first-year, transfer, and third-year students who plan to attend graduate school at App State, and first-year graduate students. This project will build on the previous App State S-STEM project which resulted in a more than 88% retention rate. Project activities include summer research, flexible team-based study halls, service to the university and community, gatherings with S-STEM alumni, resilience & well-being workshops, leadership training, and a data science STEM theme. The project emphasizes recruiting in the mountain counties surrounding the university, where poverty rates are among the highest in North Carolina. Because App State has a high percentage of first-generation college students, this project has the potential to broaden the participation of these students in STEM fields and to develop a better understanding of how to retain students from this population. In addition, the project has the potential to improve the economic development of the Appalachia region and North Carolina. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of high-achieving, low-income undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Specifically, the goals of the project are to increase the overall number and percentage of students coming from the economically disadvantaged Appalachia region, increase the number and percentage of these students who complete a STEM degree, and advance the understanding of what learning and support activities benefit these students. It is well understood that community building and mentoring activities contribute to the success of STEM students. By observing and surveying students, this project will enable a better understanding of the impact of specific activities on students' sense of community, academic self-efficacy, and success in the STEM major. In addition, reviews of institutional records will enable a comparison of S-STEM scholars to STEM majors who are not affiliated with the S-STEM project. For example, measures of persistence, retention, and graduation within a major will be collected to ascertain if there are any differences between S-STEM scholars and non-S-STEM STEM scholars. The primary mechanisms for dissemination of the project's progress and success will be publications, presentations, and workshops at education conferences and journals. In addition, the App State S-STEM web page and social media pages will be used to share the professional and academic successes of current scholars and alumni. This project is funded by NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of academically talented low-income students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.